Beneath the high ceilings of a factory in the wheat fields of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, Lamborghini engineers are building a new supercar. Called the Aventador, it has been described as the closest thing to a stealth fighter jet you'll see on the road. It's also a high-profile symbol of a strategic battle taking shape in the auto industry.
Silhouetted against grey walls, workers in black polo shirts adorned with Lamborghini's gold raging bull logo guide sheets of black material into a vacuum-controlled cutting machine, before pressing and shaping the pieces into huge molds. These parts will make the chassis of the Aventador, which is one of the first cars to have its entire body built of carbon fiber composites, an alternative to metals prized by plane-makers for their lightweight malleability and strength. The materials give designers "freedom to design aggressively," says Lamborghini's Technology Manager Massimiliano Corticelli.
The materials — plastics reinforced by synthetic fibers — will also allow the kind of performance so important to Lamborghini drivers: 0-60 mph in 2.9 seconds with a top speed of around 217 mph. But their potential value lies beyond the handful of people who can pay a starting price of $355,000 for a car that rolls off the assembly line at just 20 a week.
Partly as a consequence of emissions reduction targets, mass-market automakers need to produce lighter cars. For the next few years,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, automakers such as Fiat and Volkswagen expect weight reductions to come largely from using aluminum. But composites are 30 percent lighter than aluminum and 50 percent lighter than steel.Spro Tech has been a plastic module & Mold Maker, If carmakers can get the price down — composites currently cost at least 10 times as much as aluminum and 30 times as much as steel, according to Volkswagen — they hope to be able to use them in the mass market.
"We have been working on making cars lighter for several years, but the tightening up of regulation for reducing emissions by 2020 makes it necessary in reality to move towards breakthrough solutions,Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of " says Louis David, materials expert at French car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen.
There is progress. Peugeot and other carmakers already make some small parts out of composite material but do not yet use the technology for large parts.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, But BMW,A Coated Abrasives is an abrasive grain bonded to a flexible substrate using adhesives. which plans by the end of 2013 to roll out electric cars with entire passenger cabins made from a composite known as carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), is leading the race.
The BMW i3, which made its North American debut at the LA auto show in November, is an urban electric car wrapped in carbon fiber. Set to debut in 2013 as a 2014 model, the i3 will be able to travel up to 100 miles on a charge and reach top speeds of 93 mph, while a gasoline-powered generator will extend range.
"So far, there is no carmaker that is banking on carbon fibers quite like BMW," says Reto Hess, who coordinates global car industry analysis for Credit Suisse's private banking arm.
Silhouetted against grey walls, workers in black polo shirts adorned with Lamborghini's gold raging bull logo guide sheets of black material into a vacuum-controlled cutting machine, before pressing and shaping the pieces into huge molds. These parts will make the chassis of the Aventador, which is one of the first cars to have its entire body built of carbon fiber composites, an alternative to metals prized by plane-makers for their lightweight malleability and strength. The materials give designers "freedom to design aggressively," says Lamborghini's Technology Manager Massimiliano Corticelli.
The materials — plastics reinforced by synthetic fibers — will also allow the kind of performance so important to Lamborghini drivers: 0-60 mph in 2.9 seconds with a top speed of around 217 mph. But their potential value lies beyond the handful of people who can pay a starting price of $355,000 for a car that rolls off the assembly line at just 20 a week.
Partly as a consequence of emissions reduction targets, mass-market automakers need to produce lighter cars. For the next few years,Get information on Air purifier from the unbiased, automakers such as Fiat and Volkswagen expect weight reductions to come largely from using aluminum. But composites are 30 percent lighter than aluminum and 50 percent lighter than steel.Spro Tech has been a plastic module & Mold Maker, If carmakers can get the price down — composites currently cost at least 10 times as much as aluminum and 30 times as much as steel, according to Volkswagen — they hope to be able to use them in the mass market.
"We have been working on making cars lighter for several years, but the tightening up of regulation for reducing emissions by 2020 makes it necessary in reality to move towards breakthrough solutions,Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of " says Louis David, materials expert at French car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen.
There is progress. Peugeot and other carmakers already make some small parts out of composite material but do not yet use the technology for large parts.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, But BMW,A Coated Abrasives is an abrasive grain bonded to a flexible substrate using adhesives. which plans by the end of 2013 to roll out electric cars with entire passenger cabins made from a composite known as carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), is leading the race.
The BMW i3, which made its North American debut at the LA auto show in November, is an urban electric car wrapped in carbon fiber. Set to debut in 2013 as a 2014 model, the i3 will be able to travel up to 100 miles on a charge and reach top speeds of 93 mph, while a gasoline-powered generator will extend range.
"So far, there is no carmaker that is banking on carbon fibers quite like BMW," says Reto Hess, who coordinates global car industry analysis for Credit Suisse's private banking arm.
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